The region of central, northern and western Europe, or CNWE, has emerged as the world’s most active cryptocurrency block, receiving over $1 trillion worth of digital assets over the past year, according to new research from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.
The report, which was released Tuesday, found that the CNWE region accounted for 25% of global crypto activity between July 2020 and June 2021. The region witnessed a sharp uptick in transaction volume across all crypto sub-categories, especially decentralized finance, or DeFi.
Chainalysis describes crypto transactions as anything involving trade, investments and business dealings.
Europe has also become a hotbed for institutional investing, with transactions values in this category growing to $46.3 billion in June 2021 compared with just $1.4 billion in July 2020. Perhaps surprisingly, the United Kingdom is the single largest crypto economy in the region at $170 billion worth of transactions. Nearly half, or 49%, of the value was sent via DeFi protocols.
